Grippers are mechanical devices with one or more jaws that are moved toward and away from one another by an electric motor, fluid powered actuator, or other such motion producing actuator. Once moved into a position of contact with the gripped workpiece, the jaws produce a gripping force against the workpiece, to affect subsequent movement of the workpiece.
Such grippers are often used as an end effector attached to the end of a robotic arm, wherein the gripper is driven by an electric motor or fluid rotary actuator, with the rotation of the motor shaft converted to linear motion of the jaws through a screw and nut, i.e.—a power screw, or a rack and pinion arrangement. Such gripper mechanisms are shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 7,490,881 (Null), which discloses a pneumatically powered gripper. It is often desirable to match the required torque and rotational speed of the gripper input to the torque and rotational speed of the motor output with a belt and pulley speed reducer or a gear reducer located between the motor and gripper drive mechanism.
It is further known that the orientation of the reducer is physically fixed relative to the axis of the gripper jaw motion input shaft. Such fixed orientation can result in undesirable physical interference between the motor and speed or gear reducer and portions of the robotic arm during articulation of the arm. What is needed in the art is a way to easily orient the motor and reducer combination so as to eliminate this undesirable physical interference between the motor and speed or gear reducer and portions of the robotic arm during articulation of the arm.